Only For A Knight (4 page)

 

And what an eyeful she was!

 

Forgetting his impossible vow not to look lower than her nose, he let his gaze devour her, the neck opening of his drenched tunic seeming to grow tighter with each slow beat of his heart. Frowning, he reminded himself to breathe. But, holy saints, even wet and bedraggled, there could be no denying the splendor of her. A high-colored beauty, ripe promise limned her lush curves in ways he ought not be noticing.

 

Especially under the circumstances of his return to Kintail and the unavoidable duties awaiting him at his father’s Eilean Creag Castle.

 

In particular his responsibilities to one Lady Euphemia MacLeod.

 

His betrothed.

 

A lass he suddenly knew would prove as cold and unforgiving as a long dark winter—if she even perceived herself wronged.

 

“Aye, well . . .” Robbie muttered to himself, the softly spoken
acceptance
slipping off his tongue before he even realized its portent.

 

But before certain relevant conclusions could assail him, he relegated Lady Euphemia to the farthest reaches of his mind—for the nonce, at least—and returned his fullest attention to more immediate concerns.

 

Ill-placed attraction or nay, the wild possibilities of every glorious inch of this golden, voluptuous maid whirled inside him, quickening his pulse and sharpening his senses. Keening, too, a needful urgency he hadn’t known himself capable of rendering—until the sheer impropriety of his longing caught hard at the back of his throat.

 

Tearing his gaze from her, he stared across the lochan at the cloud shadows teasing their way across the braes—stared until he’d better steeled himself.

 

Thus fortified, he touched her face again, used the edge of his dampened sleeve to wipe her blood-stained cheek. “Have no fear, all will be well,” he murmured, willing it to be so, hoping his assurances weren’t just empty blundering. “You wear your good health as robustly as your high looks—a single wee cut from a ewe’s hoof will not be enough to have done with such a braw fine lassie.”

 

His heart thudding, he lifted the clump of sphagnum and peered at her forehead. Praise the saints, the bleeding appeared to have lessened. But as if his ill ease had not yet been fully unfurled, the moment he pressed the moss to her wound again, a great shudder tore through her and she began to shiver.

 

Uncontrollably.

 

Truth be told, she shook so fiercely that just by holding her he could feel her every tremble echo down the length of his own over-chilled body.

 

Her teeth chattered, too.

 

At once, stinging heat shot up Robbie’s neck. He ought be scorned with a thousand Gaelic curses! The lass was dripping wet, freezing, and like as not catching a surer death than a single ewe’s kick could e’er hope to give her, and he’d done naught but slap a clump of quickly-dug healing moss onto her forehead.

 

His own head beginning to throb, Robbie pushed to his feet, already unbuckling his sword belt. Casting it aside, he drew in a deep, shoulder-bracing breath, prepared himself for what he was about to do.

 

The lass needed to be stripped naked, rubbed dry, then held warm until she stirred.

 

Just as he, too, ought—and soon would be—shedding more than just his sword belt.

 

To prove it, he shrugged out of his drenched plaid, yanked off his boots, and made admirably short work of any other piece of cold and cloying garb yet clinging to him until naught clothed him but the afternoon’s gilding sunlight and the fine Highland breeze.

 

Full naked, and with the living air around him crackling with expectation, he strode to his horse, his purpose soundly fixed. And damn his unchivalrous hide, but he thrummed with excited anticipation as well.

 

A fool could see the lass wore no undergown and that once freed of her soggy kirtle, naught but her fiery braids would cover her luscious breasts. A splendid bounty he’d already feasted his gaze upon. And he wouldn’t be a man if he hadn’t noted that she lacked hose as well—naught but the smooth, sleek skin of her bared calves showed above her sadly scuffed boots.

 

“Blessed Saint Columba!” Robbie muttered as he rummaged in his traveling gear, pulled out a voluminous plaid and two clean linen tunics.

 

Wheeling about, he returned to her, dropped the items on a patch of high-growing deer grass, and, once again, promptly forgot the wholly absurd vow he may as well have scribbled on water. Driven by a force he did not even consider schooling, he let his gaze drift lower than her nose.

 

A good deal lower.

 

Ignoring any shades of reproof his honor might hurl at him, he listened only to the rapid
clacking
of her chattering teeth and, sinking to his knees, reached for the edges of her torn bodice. Already, the ragged cloth gaped wide, exposing her in all her lush plentitude. Robbie swallowed, his heart pounding as he began easing the drenched gown down her shivering body.

 

Glistening droplets of water sparkled on her full, perfectly formed breasts and tiny rivulets formed, rolling down the wet-gleaming skin of her stomach to form eye-catching little pools where the bundled mass of her soaked skirts yet bunched about her naked hips.

 

Robbie gave himself an inward shake, and summoned all his strength. Then, with a quick downward tug, he freed her of the sopping garments.

 

Again, the sheer impact of her hit him like an iron-balled fist to the gut, her ripe lushness stealing his breath and firing him in ways that had his every muscle tensing. Setting his jaw, he tried not to glance at the wet, garnet-red curls springing betwixt her thighs—and failed.

 

There, too, water droplets glistened in a nigh irresistible beckoning. More tempting still, the faint spice of her
female
scent wafted up to him, and catching it, he looked away at once. The musky scent’s tang beguiled him, especially laced as it was with the freshness of heather and the dark sweetness of peat. His heart thumping, Robbie pulled in a slow, steady breath—the best he could manage with his throat and chest constricting so acutely.

 

And if any other part of him tightened more than he would wish, he strove to ignore it.

 

More difficult was ignoring his fierce urge to look at her
secret charms
again. And look right well. So he gathered her in his arms and pulled her tight against him, shielding her delights from immediate view, but promptly delivering himself a whole new batch of woes unleashed by the startling intimacy of the over-close embrace.

 

Frowning at the necessity of such a measure, he snatched up the dry plaid he’d retrieved and swooped its generous folds around their shoulders, letting its wooly length warm them both.

 

Not that he needed much warming.

 

His trembling had little to do with chilblains.

 

Saints, but the maid was fashioned to grace a man’s most heated dreams.

 

And
he
ought be made of a finer metal!

 

A better tempered steel, hard and resistant.

 

Run steely-hard indeed, Robbie gritted his teeth and began massaging the lass’s naked back beneath the cover of the plaid, rocking her gently to and fro as he did so. He also wished himself a better master at the fine and much neglected art of
ignoring
and wished even more that on his long journey home he’d availed himself more often of the buxom tavern wenches and warmhearted young widows who’d offered him all manner of salacious comfort along the way.

 

But only one of the fulsome lassies had truly captured his interest—an ale-keeper’s plump and gap-toothed daughter. And because of her and what she’d offered him, the progress of his journey had dwindled to a snail’s pace.

 

Aye, he ought to have been home days ago—and would have been—had not the persistent serving maid pressed
other wares
on him when he’d repeatedly rebuffed her amorous looks and bawdily proffered favors. Clearly bent on winning some coin from him, however achieved, she’d listened to his excuses about hurrying home to wed his betrothed, then seized his hand and led him to a smoky corner of the low-ceilinged alehouse.

 

With a triumphant flourish, she’d pointed behind a trestle bench piled high with kegs and flagons to where a clutch of tiny fat-bellied puppies frolicked and tumbled amid the strewn bones, onion peels, and other refuse littering the soured floor rushes.

 

A wee puppy, she’d declared, all fluff and floppy ears, would delight his new bride and surely soften her heart . . . if indeed the lass needed a bit of taming.

 

And Robbie had agreed.

 

But not because he felt he required any assistance in wooing Euphemia MacLeod. Like most MacKenzie men, Robbie suffered more trouble fending off willing wenches than attracting them.

 

Nay, he’d simply been charmed by the wee pups—losing his heart to a chubby little round of brown and white fur he’d dubbed Mungo because the alehouse stood not far from the mighty cathedral church of St. Mungo in Glasgow.

 

Remembering, he slid a glance at the small wicker hamper affixed to the back of his saddle. Even now, the wriggling little fellow peered at him over the side of the tiny basket, the pup’s bright brown eyes quizzical.

 

Praise be the saints, the mite’s gaze appeared only curious and not . . .
urgent.

 

Wee Mungo had piddled and soiled his way all through the Great Glen into Kintail, the necessary pauses not only delaying the journey, but without doubt causing Robbie to have passed by this lochan at such a propitious moment.

 

At the thought, Robbie paused in his circular rubbing of the maid’s back, a quick stab of guilt piercing straight to his conscience. Many were they who’d claim his encounter with the fiery beauty anything but propitious.

 

Vowing to hush any such tongue-clacking should the like arise, he compressed his lips until the moment passed, then resumed kneading the cold, smooth shoulders pressed so close against his heart.

 

“Fear not, lass, I will let naught befall you,” he murmured against her hair. “No matter who you are or what troubles follow you. Just waken, you fine braw lassie, and I promise all will be well. . . .”

 

All will be well.

 

Ne’er forget you are a fine braw lassie . . . naught will befall you while I am away.

 

I promise. . . .

 

The familiar words slid past Juliana’s ear, softly spoken but strong enough to penetrate the cold darkness pressing all around her, powerful enough in their dimly remembered assurances to echo in her mind with the same throbbing insistence of the pain pulsing in her forehead.

 

But then the voice faded, leaving only a dull ache and blackness. That, and a sweet, all-enveloping warmth that cushioned her from the little nigglings of dread licking at her from the whirling shadows.

 

Dread, and a maddeningly elusive sense of . . .

 

purpose.

 

Something she must do.

 

If only she could remember.

 

Or stop the red-hammering agony in her head.

 

“Come you, lass. Open your eyes,” the man spoke again, his voice still close by her ear yet louder this time, more clear. And laced with a definite tinge of concern.

 

Deep inside Juliana, a part of her still hazed and sleeping reached toward him, yearned to soothe his worry. All the saints knew, he bore a heavy enough weight upon his shoulders without her adding to his burden.

 

And he’d spoken naught but the truth. She’d always fared well during his absences for she was indeed strong—steely-backed, he’d often declared in jest, his dark blue eyes twinkling when he teased her.

 

But much as she wished to reassure him, her lips wouldn’t form the words.

 

Truth be told, she couldn’t move at all.

 

Not until he touched probing fingers to her forehead and a lancing pain such as she’d never known streaked clear to her toes.

 

“Eeeeeeeee . . . ow!” she cried, jerking violently in his arms.

 

Arms that had only ever held her in loving, joyous reunion or sad, parting embraces—till now.

 

She blinked, peered through stinging eyes at the beloved face. But billowing red-tinged fog still swirled all around her, blurring the edges of everything and even making the familiar features appear somehow different.

 

She just couldn’t say
what
was different.

 

“Whate’er have you done to me?” She pulled back from his tight embrace, fixed all her confusion on the concern-filled eyes watching her so strangely.

 

“My head—” She raised trembling fingers to her forehead, felt the tenderness and pain, the warm stickiness of congealing blood. “I am bleeding,” she stammered, more startled than anything. “What hap—”

 

“Hush, sweeting, dinna you fret,” he soothed, brushing his cheek so closely against hers she would have sworn he kissed the tip of her nose.

 

Something he always did when he meant to tease or comfort her.

 

At the remembrance, the sweet golden warmth of familiarity swept through her again and she leaned into him, wrapped her arms around his broad, naked shoulders.

 

Naked shoulders?

 

A tremor of . . .
something . . . skittered down Juliana’s equally unclothed spine but the throbbing in her head wouldn’t let her make sense of what bothered her.

 

What was so different and . . . wrong.

 

So she gave herself defeated and sank back into the cushioning warmth, nestling her head against the welcome strength of his shoulder. Whate’er plagued her, he’d fix it. He always did, e’er knowing her very thoughts before they even left her lips.

 

They were so alike.

 

Almost adrift on the blessed peace his mere presence lent her, she dared to stretch gingerly testing fingers along the top of her forehead again, measuring in silent assessment the damage to her brow.

 

She sighed. A lifetime spent living close to the land had stripped her of embracing anything but the cold, hard truth. But hurtful or nay, there was e’er room for hope.